


what if end was begin?

by woahpip



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Cassian Andor-centric, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Battle of Scarif (Star Wars), Rebelcaptain Secret Santa 2020, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, little intimacies, mutual hairwashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28423080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woahpip/pseuds/woahpip
Summary: “Jyn…” he said, voice raspy. He was pleased to find he could move his hands; he pushed the one she was using as a pillow against her cheek. “Wake up.”Her eyes fluttered open quick. Her brows scrunched in confusion. For one moment, they were back where they were days ago, strangers.And then she really woke up and remembered.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 22
Kudos: 71
Collections: The RebelCaptain Network Secret Santa Exchange





	what if end was begin?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YoukaiLuvr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoukaiLuvr/gifts).



> written for the RebelCaptain Network Secret Santa! <3 here's a little hurt/comfort with some non-sexual intimacies.

Cassian woke up after Scarif thinking that becoming one with the Force shouldn’t hurt so fucking much. It took him a few minutes to place himself. The bright lights of the Alliance sick bay hurt his eyes, so he kept them closed while he worked things out. 

The clinical bacta smell coated his skin, though his hair felt scratchy— must not have been a full-body dump. It was hard to believe they’d use that much bacta on a defector. Even though he did it to save the Alliance instead of watch it die.

The pain he felt was everywhere, but especially his back. The fall, the collision came back to him and he bit his tongue. Knew it would be a forever pain.

When he turned his head he smelled more sweat. There was a lock of hair in his left hand and the back of his fingers met skin. He knew it’d be Jyn before he opened his eyes. When he finally powered through the brightness, he saw she was sleeping with her head on his sickbed. He was glad to see her, whole and somehow alive. Her head was at an angle. Dried blood at her temple like she was hit by a truncheon, probably when they ran to the beach. There was a deep bruise setting in around her nose, and more dried blood around her nostrils. 

It didn’t look like they healed her very much.

“Jyn…” he said, voice raspy. He was pleased to find he could move his hands; he pushed the one she was using as a pillow against her cheek. “Wake up.”

Her eyes fluttered open quick. Her brows scrunched in confusion. For one moment, they were back where they were days ago, strangers.

And then she really woke up and remembered.

“You almost died.”

“I’m sorry.” 

She lifted a hand to his cheek and he pushed into it. When was the last time he was touched? Or was worried about so deeply? The few friends he had were spread about in the Alliance, doing their own things. No one had the time to dote on him.

“Are you staying?” 

Jyn pulled her hand back and ran it through her bangs before answering.

“It’s been a while since I had a home.”

*

Their privacy was quickly broken by a med droid who decided Cassian was “55% healed” and that his bed would needed soon and he needed to start moving. After that, a newly minted private came to “escort them to their quarters.”

“So I’m a still a Captain.”

“Yes,” the private answered, voice crisp.

“But I don’t have a Captain’s room anymore.”

“We needed to expand space for weapons storage. You are not often on base, so it was decided you didn’t need a captains quarters.”

“There could be worse punishments,” Jyn said.

Cassian snorted, wincing right after as the movement made his back catch. The med bay gave him a limited number of pain pills, and a crutch that was too short for him. He used it like a cane. Jyn helped balance his other side, his arm slung around her shoulders. She carried his weight.

The private assisted in no way, and did not react to Jyn’s comment.

It seemed like the once ostracized Intelligence operative would now be a disgraced grunt soldier. That’s what Cassian thought was happening, why the underling acted like Jyn and Cassian were just above prisoners. 

Draven would come around eventually and tell him what was next.

He only hoped Jyn got to stay around too. Cassian knew he’d push for it. Fight for it. They were in this together now and he didn’t care what that meant to Draven or Mothma or anyone else on base.

“We set up some cots for you here. Andor, the belongs from your room are in here, including your clothes. Erso, we found some things for you wear. Both of you need to find a sonic. You smell.” The private then turned heel and left them at the doors.

“He’s top of the list of people I need to punch when I feel better,” Jyn said. She looked up at him and gave a thin smile. “I’m too fucking tired right now to think about anything.”

*

The room was bare. It had the mentioned cots and two foldable chairs set up to be side tables. There was no sonic in the room, but was a rare room with a spigot in the back.

“Looks like an old training room.” Cassian shook off thoughts of his own training and went to the cot with his belongings. His parka needed to be tended to— blood matted the fur lining, there were rips all the way through to the insulation, all leftover from Eadu. His other clothes looked fairly clean, a few pairs of pants and plain shirts. 

Jyn looked through each piece of clothing in her stack. She received her own jacket. It looked soft, like worn brown leather. Cassian could see the lining had been replaced by someone unfamiliar with sewing, thick white thread knotted in uneven intervals. She rubbed her thumb on the outside. He heard her make an exaggerated swallow and then sigh, deep, like the breath could exorcise whatever she was feeling.

“This is nice,” she said.

Cassian nodded.

“Someone wouldn’t just get rid of this. Or donate it because they want something new. Someone died for me to get this.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he nodded again.

“Everyone fucking dies. And we’re still here.”

He huffed, mouth starting to form something before stopping. He couldn’t say anything, because he agreed.

They sorted through the rest of their things in silence.

*

For two seasoned soldiers who were taught to sleep light and always expect danger, they slept well. Cassian woke what felt like hours after they had laid down. There were small windows near the top of the ceilings showing pitch darkness. Yavin night.

They had pushed their cots as close as they could together. It made them feel safer. He knows it’s why he slept so long. Sometime during their nap, they had touched. Jyn was facing him, her hand thrown beside her and on Cassian’s cot. Cassian had his hand around her wrist, pulling it toward him like he wanted to cuddle it or her arm, pull her whole body towards him.

The intelligence part of his brain tells him it’s wrong to feel that. He’ll have to move on. But he knows this is it. This is what it’s going to be.

If he wants to touch her, he will. If she wants him too.

He squeezes her hand again and falls back to sleep.

*

The next time he woke up it’s to running water. His hand was empty, and he’s flat on his back. It took him a minute to pull himself up, back trying to catch with each inch. He turned towards the noise and saw Jyn filling up a bucket with the spigot.

“What are you doing?”

She jumped and turned the water off.

“Dickhead was right. We smell. I don’t think a sonic will do anything but spin the stink around. We’ll have to birdbath it or something.”

“Birdbath?”

That got a smile out of her. He wanted that to happen over and over again.

“I know you’ve had to bathe before with out hopping in a tub.”

“I have but I don’t think I can bend over a bucket to get this shit out of my hair.”

She grinned again and pointed to a corner of the floor where a drain set.

“Thought about that and this is weird, but we’ll be clean. Clean and rested and ready for…whatever.”

“Show me what you want to do,” he said, and she took his hand.

*

Jyn knew it would hurt him to lean forward or back, so she had him strip to an undershirt and briefs and sit on a folding chair the middle of their makeshift recovery room.

“So you’ll just pour it over me?” he grunted out. He gripped right above his knees, squeezing his nails in. That quick pain distracted him from the greater pain in his back, getting worse the longer he sits without back support.

“You will get wet,” Jyn warned one more time.

“I’ll dry off.”

Jyn gave a tiny nod and then started.

He shivered at the first cupfull, a full-body shudder. His toes curled into the concrete and goosebumps pricked his neck, tops of his shoulders.

After a few more cups she starts massaging the soap bar into his hair. It was on their cots with their belongings, Alliance standard. It’s medicinal, overly clean scent melded with the blood and sweat she was scrubbing off of him. He hair was matted, especially where it met the collar of his shirt. Her untangling didn’t hurt. Cassian welcomed the tugging. He decided he didn’t want to ease into touching anyway. He wanted it everyday, in some way.

Jyn used her nails to to get soap in his scalp. He sighed, felt the slight release of tension in his shoulders and chest.

It didn’t last long before she went back to rinsing. It poured down him in rivets. He should’ve stripped completely naked. Jyn wouldn’t have cared. The tanktop stuck to his chest, to the bits of ribs showing through his skin. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate. He didn’t know if they’d be welcomed in the dining hall. There were a few food items left with them, but he wasn’t sure if they’d last their whole recovery.

“Cassian?”

She popped him out of his head, as she always seemed to do.

“I’m done with your hair.” She passed him a torn piece of fabric she was using as a washcloth. “If you want to scrub with that a little you can.”

He immediately took it to his neck, moving down his shoulders and then going to his armpits. The cloth was slightly soaped, so he took turns splashing water where he scrubbed. The water was fucking cold but it felt refreshing in Yavin IV’s humidity.

Jyn had turned away and busied herself with something as he moved down his body.

“You next?” he asked, rising from the chair. His back was tight but he felt clean, rid of all of the shit of the last few days. “I won’t dress till after I help you.”

“Help me?”

“I figured I would…wash your hair. Do what you did for me.”

“My back isn’t broken.”

“But you still feel pain. Just because you don’t tell me doesn’t mean I don’t know.” Only a day out of the medbay, most of that sleeping, and he noticed her slight limp. How she put her hand on her head like she had a constant, raging headache.

And there was blood still crusted on her face, faded but present.

“You don’t have to if—“

“I want to.”

*

Cassian’s only experience washing long hair was a wig he was given for an undercover mission. He was the host of a holonet music show with blue hair that he kept in a half top knot. It was the coolest he had ever looked.

When he got out, the synethetic hairs were burned by close blaster fire. The plastic melted together into goo, and he never wanted to think of that persona again.

Washing Jyn’s hair is different. He combed his fingers through her dry strands first, untangling them the best he could. Her hair was dry like straw, in desperate need of products you couldn’t find on a military base. She sat in only her breast wrappings, covered with a cut-off tank top, and a pair of his shorts.

Her back was covered in scars, like his. Her fresh wounds were puckered, set to heal new, jagged lines on her skin. Her hair was worse than his, covered in muck and full of snarls. The bottom part was the worst. He could tell it tangled often in her necklace string. There was blood matting it together, probably from the singe he saw on her shoulder. 

He was glad he could do this for her; he wanted to help her feel better. 

He poured the water over her without warning. Jyn hissed in a breath but relaxed right after, slumping forward just a bit. He poured a few more times, paying attention to her matted spots.

When he started scrubbing with soap, she let out these little moans. Her ears turned red, and she blushed down her neck. He’d bet it went all the way to her chest. She didn’t mention anything and Cassian didn’t dare say a word about it.

He just kept scrubbing, Paying her back of course, by scratching her scalp and rubbing her neck. He found his hands didn’t want to stop touching her skin. The tepid water made her skin feel slightly clammy, but he could feel her body move ever so slight when she breathed or made her little noises. The foam lathered up muddy and red; he rinsed and soaped and rinsed again until the bubbles frothed white and the water ran clear. 

“Would it be weird…if I asked you to wash my hair again some day?"

I’d wash all of you, he wanted to say.

“Does that mean you’re sticking around?”

She got up and stepped to him, water running in little streams down her body into the floor. Placed a hand on his hip, her hand hot on his damp shirt. He heard her swallow, felt her pause before placed her other hand on his chest, over his heart.

“This is home now.”

As soon as she finished, he ducked down for a kiss, back pain forgotten. He tangled his hands in her hair, fresh and clean and soft against his fingers. For once, the logical part of his brain didn’t tell him all the bad things that could happen, all the reasons this kind of feeling was wrong. 

He let himself feel. Listened to the in and out of their breath until time slipped and he was just a man who could want.

They were alive. He decided then he’d make sure it stayed that way.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from what if by sylvan esso.
> 
> (see any glaring errors? let me know!)


End file.
